http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_2115000/2115887.stm
By Alfred Hermida
BBC News Online technology staff
9 July, 2002
A crumbling concrete anti-aircraft tower off the east coast of England
is home to a dot.com venture with a difference.
The military platform, dubbed Sealand, is the base of internet hosting
company HavenCo which is bucking the downturn of the dot.com economy.
The company has been exploiting Sealand's self-proclaimed sovereignty
to offer an offshore data haven, free of government interference.
"We believe that people have a right to communicate freely," said Ryan
Lackey, co-founder of HavenCo. "If they want to operate certain kinds
of business that don't hurt anybody else, they should be able to do
so."
The venture comes at a time when governments across the world are
tightening controls on the internet.
New laws both in the US and Europe are giving officials greater powers
to snoop on online activities.
Self-styled nation
Mr Lackey came up with the idea for HavenCo two years ago and started
looking for somewhere to create an electronic refuge.
"We looked all around the world for somewhere that would have secure
internet hosting, outside of government regulation and we could not
really find any," Mr Lackey told the BBC programme Go Digital.
In the end, he settled on the self-styled sovereign principality of
Sealand.
Britain built the anti-aircraft platform during the Second World War.
It remained derelict until the 1960s when a retired Army major, Paddy
Roy Bates, took over the 10,000 square foot platform and declared it
the independent nation of Sealand.
At the time, the platform was beyond the then three-mile limit of
British territorial waters. All this changed in 1987, when the UK
extended its territorial waters from three to 12 miles.
Little regulation
Britain does not recognise the sovereignty of Sealand but this has not
deterred HavenCo.
It has installed internet servers on the platform, linked to the
outside world via satellite links.
There are few controls on the kind of websites that HavenCo is
prepared to host.
"We have a strict policy of three things we prohibit here," explained
Mr Lackey. "We prohibit child pornography, spamming and hacking from
our machines to other machines."
So far many of the sites are online gambling ventures. But a growing
number of political groups banned in their own countries have turned
to HavenCo, such as the website of the Tibetan Government in exile.
"We also permit any sort of free debate about issues whereas a country
or company might try to censor this or sue you," said Mr Lackey.
Providing a service to companies or groups who want to keep their data
secret or publish it on the web without censorship is proving a
worthwhile enterprise.
"We've been profitable since the summer of 2001 so from a commercial
standpoint we can continue forever," said Mr Lackey.
"Regulations in other countries simply increase demand."
However, how long HavenCo will escape the attention of the authorities
is uncertain, with officials insisting that any site hosted on Sealand
will have to comply with British internet regulations.
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